Otherwise, what was the point? I did respect other people’s privacy, though. I didn’t want to do it if I wasn’t prepared to present the story and myself as the character telling the story, warts and all. Were you tempted to censor entries?Ĭleage : I had to be rigorous with myself about that. Sometimes in the middle of spinning some elaborate tale, I would realize how ridiculous I sounded, even to myself! That’s the point where you begin to wonder why you are lying and, hopefully, figure out a way to start telling the truth.ĪrtsATL: Your diary is such a candid exploration of sex, race, parenthood, ambition. You can spot the lies you are telling more easily if you write them down. One of the things that my journals did for me was to give me a place to speak honestly to myself. I meant the lies that I was telling myself that I had never shared with anyone, and that I hoped would be as instructive as the truth I was always trying to pass on. Pearl Cleage: I didn’t mean “lying” in the sense of not telling the truth. Isn’t a diary the ultimate keeper of truths?
on June 27.ĪrtsATL: I was intrigued by the word “lies” in your title. These decades were a heady time for civil rights as well as women’s issues, and what emerges is a piercingly honest look at one woman’s coming of age in a time that is itself coming into its own.Ĭleage will appear at the African American Women Writers Book Club at Barnes and Nobles (North Point Parkway) at 7 p.m. During the ensuing years she worked at former mayor Maynard Jackson’s office, fell in love, fell out of love, had a baby and discovered her politics, her passion and her truths. At the start, Cleage was a student at Spelman College. Things I Should have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons and Love Affairs is a collection of entries from the 1970s and ’80s.
Esteemed author Pearl Cleage has been pouring her heart out in journals since she was 11 years old.
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